Adopting the Perspective of Flow to Investigate the Effects of Participation Motivation on Volunteer Firefighters’ Job Satisfaction

Volunteer firefighters are praised and respected by the public because of their selfless and passionate dedication. Previous studies have explored the participation motivations that drive people to work as volunteer firefighters and fulfill highly risky firefighting tasks, the communication and interactions among members of firefighter groups in work environments, the teamwork among group members, and the members’ perception of the organizations. This study incorporated the flow theory. Thus, we built and tested an integrated model for investigating the relationships among participation motivation, flow experience, and job satisfaction. This paper explored these relationships using structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze data from volunteer firefighters in Taiwan. The SEM analyses results generally supported the hypotheses. The article concludes with theoretical and managerial implications based on the research findings.